A natural disaster will affect everyone

14 September 2016

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Dear Editor,

Re: Are you serious?

It was badly put in my opinion. A natural disaster isn’t going to strike just Sogi. It’ll strike everywhere else in the Vaimauga coast as well.

What the minister should’ve talked about is the infertile swamp land that most of the Sogi village is situated on - it is no surprise that most of the Sogi villagers have relocated; there is only a few diehards left.

There is no doubt the land the villagers are offered up in Falelauniu are much more fertile and plentiful and will provide the villagers with a much greater quality of life than the current swamp that is Sogi.

The area resembled a poverty stricken disaster zone when New Zealand media visited the village back in 2007 to report on the aftermath of the Folole Muliaga death in New Zealand.

This is how the Sunday Star Times described the village:

“She wanted out of her family’s village of Sogi, an inner-city suburb of Apia, and one of the poorer areas. Her matai (chief) father Lei’ataua Moresi Tokuma, 74, has a nice place there, with its carefully maintained patch of lawn and garden and western-style house.

A government clerk in Apia for almost 40 years, Moresi has family land on the island of Manono, between the main islands of Savai’i and Upolu, and rents his land in Sogi from the government for five tala ($2.35) a fortnight. He is secretary of the Congregational Christian Church next door, which is the centre of the community and takes tithes of around 20 tala per family ($9.40) a week. On top of that, it raised several thousand tala at a dance last weekend.

None of this money appears to be going on improving local housing. Behind Moresi’s house is a collection of shanties, like something out of an African slum.”